Hopkins’ abuse tweets ‘dangerous’

Katie Hopkins has been accused of behaving in “a dangerously provocative way” after she suggested Pakistani men in the Rochdale area were sex abusers.

The celebrity has been reported to police by the town’s MP, Simon Danczuk, over claims she may have incited racial hatred with a series of comments on Twitter.

Hopkins is said to have started sending the tweets after Mr Danczuk attended the raising of a Pakistani flag over the town hall for half an hour on March 23 to mark Pakistan’s National Day.

She wrote: “Raising a Pakistani flag in Rochdale is not helping community cohesion. it is inflammatory. @SimonDanczuk you & your party disgust me.”

Outspoken Hopkins posted a series of messages to her account after the MP tweeted a picture of himself at the event.

In response the controversial columnist sent a picture of eight men convicted of child exploitation offences, asking Mr Danczuk if they were his friends too.

Mr Danczuk said Rochdale has faced up to the “heinous crime” of child grooming ” in a way that’s managed to keep our communities together”.

He said: ” That’s why Katie Hopkins’ crass comments are not helpful. They are a clear attempt to divide communities, undo three years of hard work and make an unfair and racist generalisation that anyone of Pakistani origin is a child abuser. To equate the Pakistan flag with child abuse, as she has done on social media over the last week, is absurd and it creates a dangerous environment where extreme intolerance becomes acceptable.

“We have already seen taxi drivers stabbed in the face in race hate attacks and I’m not prepared to allow people like Hopkins, who know nothing about our town, to stir up tensions in such a dangerously provocative way that could lead to innocent people being attacked by extremists. As a result of her comments last week, I have been threatened by extremists and hard right groups have pledged to march on our town. I am a strong supporter of free speech but it has to be responsible – and that’s why we have laws to prevent people deliberately provoking hatred of a racial group.”